I had the Pyramid for a while but I sold it because of too many things i did not like ( don’t want to talk about again but if you read french language I suggest to go to the AUDIFOFANZINE forum ) .
I switch for the GOTHARMAN FUZION , more expensive , but more stuff ( sampler, synthtizer 8 voices ) and mostly, a better sequencing , less rigid.
I love my Fuzion and can just advice that device.
Really orginal sequencing, quite unique .

This box has EVERYTHING the A4 doesnt: Polyphony, MIDI sequencing (A4 only does CV) and you can play live on a keyboard and record it freely, with human feel and play it back exactly like you played it - Unlike the Octa which totally ruins your live performance… I like this box because its not just another step sequencer

Got to thinking about this again as I’ve been thinking about polyrhythmic sequencing, and came across this video posted a few days ago:

The spoken audio is poorly recorded but totally intelligible, but the overview of the math and visual representation of polyrhythms, as well as the demonstration of the a Pyramid itself for this purpose is really good and worth a view.

Really thinking I might try to get in on the next batch of these. I’ve been really uninspired for the last couple of months and have barely turned on any gear in a few weeks, but the last couple days I’ve been back into it and have only been focusing on couch sessions with the Monomachine, which has had me thinking a lot about sequencing and what I want to realize the sound and workflow that fits my brain, and the Pyramid seems to just about nail it. The track/sequence/part thing seems a bit limited to me and I wish there was more CV (dunno if any kind of breakout box is realistic), but I have yet to meet a piece of gear without some compromises.

In the manual (I read it somewhere) there was a breakout box planned … maybe it’s yet to come, I think the OS development must have taken pride, which is fair I guess… I was reading on the muff’s thread there’s some kind of breakout it already works with (not official) but i only skipped through and missed the details.

The fact this converts cv 2 midi is pretty decent… I’m not confident on details but think that means your A4 can now sequence midi too, with this device, if that floats your boat (and if I’m not mistaken) not sure why you’d want to tho given you have plenty of squarp tracks anyway.

Edit - I guess the point would be weird shit !! Like sequencing A4 with squarp midi - sending cv to squarp and sending that back into A4 as midi etc… ?!

I got one two weeks ago.
The good thing is it does everything I wanted the octatrack to do which it wouldn’t and it seems really relieable so far. The bad thing is that there is still a lot of stuff missing and the way it is working and you have to use it is a bit uncomfortable for my way of doing things (e.g. lots of menu switching when editing notes and adding program change or midi cc). Also so far there is no way to edit a note that is set already. The developers say this is planned for the next update but for now (please correct me if I am wrong) you can just delete the note set its values and place it again (holding note just allows to change pitch but not length, position or velocity).
P - Locking my minitaur works very well (which didn’t on the octatrack not even using a midi processor to change midi cc to program change - it worked but the program change came too late so the sound was glitching sometimes.

More easy : first press assign, then press the trig you want, then turn one of the 5 encoders !

Encoder step edit

At startup, the 5 encoders can be used to assign a CC or FX parameter, in every mode. But they can do more. In STEP mode, you can decide to assign directly the 5 encoders and the touchpad to step shortcuts.
Simply press ASSIGN to enable the “encoder step edit” feature:

It’s a great way to edit your notes and automation, you no longer have to rotate while pressing a green shortcut.

I have the Pyramid, and I am pretty happy with it. I am really new to making music, so I don’t know yet what it is missing. I have it as the heart of my setup, sending midi to all my little boxes to control. There are a couple of things I realize I want when I am playing with it, but either I realize they exist and I didn’t know about them, or they are on the PyraOS release roadmap.

Been checking out pretty much all the videos on the Pyramid that I can over the last few days. One thing I can’t help but notice is that it seems like most of the applications I’ve seen of it don’t seem too off the beaten path, lots of House and other well-trodden paths, and while there’s nothing wrong with that I feel like those are things I can do without thinking with Elektron sequencers. Does anyone have any audio or video of things that get more experimental? I’m thinking more like IDM, jazz fusion, anything a bit more complex where the notes and beats have a lot more variation. That’s the biggest appeal of the Pyramid for me and it seems like it would be ideal for such applications, but thus far I’ve not seen much demonstrating how weird you can get with it.

I’m not producing house music or anything that has a traditional song structure. This is just my experience with the Pyramid.

There are no internal LFOs that can be routed to sequencing parameters (although soon this month they will introduce LFOs that can be routed to MIDI CCs, and I’m very eager to see how they implement this differently from the Octatrack), so the only variations that can be “generated” within the Pyramid (and “generative” sequencing of note and rhythm variations is what I think of when I think “experimental”) will come from its “Randomizer” effect. But the Randomizer can be routed to any other “effects” on a track and you can control how much it randomizes in upper vs. lower ranges relative to baseline values, so if you’re subtle about it it can still be “musical.”

Its Euclidean sequencer can be good for finding new rhythmic fills, but tracks in Euclidean mode are limited to the same note at all times (or a necessarily random note across steps, if you use the Randomizer effects on those tracks).

It also allows you to use very complex combinations of time signatures across tracks.

You can draw (on the touchpad) automations of stuff like the Randomizer, Chance (step on/off probability), and Scale effects (NB: if you want those transpositiosn to stay within a chosen scale, you have to chain two Scale effects in series within the constraint of 4 effects per slot . It seems that everyone who’s commented about this on the Squarp forum is unhappy with this decision.)

Here’s its strongest asset for experimentation: If you have some interesting CV modulation sources, you can send up to 2 at once into the Pyramid and convert them to notes or into modulations of tracks’ effects (Scale, Chance, Harmonizer, etc.). You can also use one track to sequence some MIDI instrument and simultaneously have its MIDI converted to CV, and then loop that CV back into the Pyramid and route it to modulate a parameter on another track. So, there is a limited implementation of intertrack modulation as well.

Finally, it has several scales in its Scale effect that, for jazz-inspired work, you might find useful for tonally quantizing all those external modulations and drawn automations.

All that said, however, I feel that it has a fundamentally very linear workflow. This is due to its current limiation of 64 patterns in total (because there are only 64 tracks available for sequences and no concept of multiple patterns per track). Squarp has it on their roadmap to change this in the firmware update following the one planned for this month, so I hope the problem will be mitigated by the end of 2016. Until then, though, I still prefer using my for sequencing mono lines (the Pyramid will always be better for polyphonic and chord sequencing) because the parameter-locking workflow is 100x faster and its implementation of internal LFOs (especially the designer LFOs that can be modulated by other LFOs and that can be routed to multiple tracks and parameters at once) lends itself to faster results for me.

Question for the Pyramid owners: one of the things that has me considering this is using it with the OG silver Elektrons. The most obvious use would be being able to utilize the sound engine of the Elektron boxes with the more updated sequencer in the Pyramid, but I got to thinking about interesting ways you could play the sequencers against each other, like programming FX or the Sid arp or the different trig options on the Mono or the CTRL-AL or sampling engines on the MDUW to interact against longer or more complex sequences from the Pyramid.

Anyhow, on to my question: I see there is a clock multiplier/divider in the tempo section of the Pyramid, as well as a BPM effect that allows you to set a different BPM. Am I correct that the clock division is global, but the BPM effect is per track? If so, I could see all kinds of possibilities to enhance other sequencers…although a clock divider per track would be ace

I made a breakout board for the Pyramid, it plugs into midi out B and gives midi out on din, and the 2 kinds of 3.5mm TRS midi (korg, arturia, novation, etc) it gives dinsync on din socket, as well as separate run/stop and clock on 3.5mm TS. The good thing about the dinsync clock on 3.5mm is that you can use various clock rates from the Pyramid settings to clock non dinsync gear, like Monotribe, Modular sequencers etc, without wasting the env out.

Edit - It also has a LED to indicate run/stop and a header for adding other stuff if you are into diy, every pin of the squarp B output is broken out to the header Clock, 5v, Ground, Midi, Run.

Of course you can also use the breakout without a pyramid, the din sync and midi sections are separate, so you could have a dinsync converted to 3.5mm, whilst separately and at the same time convert from 3.5mm to 5 pin midi or whatever.

Another question for Pyramid owners, specifically those who use modular: I’d really like to use the Pyramid as my central hub for sequencing, but it is fairly limited for CV. I’ve been thinking about putting the Expert Sleepers ES-8 into my rack to use alongside Reaktor 6, but am also not entirely certain this is the route I want to take. It doesn’t look like it would be possible to directly use the USB out from the Pyramid to the ES-8, but I could probably still sequence my eurorack from the Pyramid via Reaktor, which isn’t an awful idea. Has anyone tried something like this? Alternatively, any thoughts on some kind of midi to CV breakout box or eurorack modules that would integrate well with the Pyramid?

Yes, I use Pyramid with the Silvers. That gives them a new and performant sequencer. Specialy for MD that doesn’t have trigless trigs. So you use the cc on Pyramid to make your MD really well driven, you brings life and motion to your sounds without slide relative problem (put an other trig to make slide function for example).

Futhermore it offers the fact of not being clubbed in 64 steps. Really appreciate that specially for the MnM.

All things that you can do with external sequencer (Pyramid or other) is possible with cc.
I will add that in the new OS, you have LFO’s (as Fx, so max 4 per tracks) to add motion to the gear sounds. So you can multiply the internal LFO and brings really great and drastics changes.

For the MD, the euclidian sequencer is a real new and easy way to create odd and cool rythm.

All the advantages of the black units are there : different time signatures, different metrics, precision of offsetting notes (more groove).

So I can say that Pyramid is a cool sequencer for Silvers. I would also let you imagine the possibilities with note mapping the patterns on MD or play the multitrig and multimap on MnM

So I sold my Analog Keys tonight and I’m hovering over the buy button on the Pyramid. I’ve been salivating over this sequencer for months now, but am admittedly foggy on some aspects of the workflow. I appreciate the flexibility in tracks/patterns/sequences, but in some instances I could see using all 64 tracks for a single song. I don’t play live with enough frequency for that to be a major hangup, but theoretically it could be, and it seems like the best method would be to have each track as a different project. I was reading earlier that they had plans to implement quick changes between projects…has this happened yet, and if not does it take very long to change projects? Also, is there a limit in the Pyramid as to how many projects you can save, or is the size of your SD card the only limitation there?